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Have we forgotten how venture capital (VC) is supposed to work?

A new technology comes out. The new tech has high startup costs and low marginal costs. You invest in 10 companies developing this new tech. 8 go bankrupt, one hangs on by a thread, the last one returns 1000x on what you invested.

Last I checked, Y-Combinator is still considered a VC firm. Investing in a bunch of firms doing the same or very similar things is what YC should be doing.

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They're really just keeping multiple irons in the fire. If the space is a winner, another player increases YC's chance of betting on the winner. More players also means the space gets explored in different ways.

> Last I checked, Y-Combinator is still considered a VC firm.

There was a time when pg would come out swinging and say that YC invests their own money which is very different from a VC firm.

Well, it did make YC different in the past: they took bets no one else would, which they could afford because of such a position. Is that still true? I’m not sure.

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